Athlete Perspective – Lindsay

Do you want to throw up?…Me too! The feeling you get when you are 99% sure you are going to fail at something, let your team down, disappoint everyone watching and embarrass yourself in front of EVERYONE. Wishing you could walk out the door and hope nobody noticed you left. I get it. I was there….the struggle was REAL.

Let me back up to over a month ago, when I said yes to compete on an RX team. I was aware of what the workouts were, so I knew there were skills that I struggled with and one that I had never even attempted…legless rope climbs. I committed knowing I would need to put in the extra time and effort to prepare. Adam gave me some drills to work on, but I never completed the skill, a few no reps here and there and those didn’t help with confidence. Hurting myself while practicing rope climbs took two weeks away from really being able to do much. With a week before the competition, I was just trying to get back to good squatting form as pain-free as possible, not to mention my loss of conditioning.

To say I went into the weekend with some doubts and hesitation is an understatement. But I could not ask for a better team to compete with or a more supportive community in general. The emotions on Saturday were normal, anxious before an event and exhausted after. I knew I could do everything I was expected to do, but you always want to do your best.

My dreaded event was first thing on Sunday morning….dun dun dun

When I woke up from the worst sleep ever, I wanted to leave and go home. (I’m talking nightmares that I would fall from the top of the rope or end up stranded in my lane for 8 minutes). I was tired, sore and not ready to face this challenge. I went to the gym early to support the other Crusher teams. I was there physically but mentally, it was questionable. I was hot then cold, wanted to sit down but too nervous so had to stand and walk, hungry but pretty confident I was going to throw up. Convinced myself that I shouldn’t have eaten the pizza last night, I didn’t need the added weight to haul up the rope. In all of my years of being an athlete, I’ve never experienced such anxiety and personal doubt. I’ve known that other workouts or events would be tough but knew to some degree I could do it. I had ZERO confidence and was pretty sure I would fail with this. When it was time to warm up I didn’t touch the rope, hardly even looked at it. Pretty sure I gave the stink eye to every other girl who so nimbly and quickly climbed to the top without using her legs and made it look SO DAMN EASY. Even told Adam I wasn’t about to touch that thing, because at this point I was either going to do it or not, trying 15 minutes before wasn’t going to make a difference. Hardly touched the deadlift bar because I had to get past four legless ropes climbs before I was “rewarded” with the heavy deadlifts.

Time for staging…it was about to get real. At this point, there is no more time to go to the bathroom. The only option would be to walk out the door and leave…but three other awesome athletes and teammates were counting on me to be there. This is a good time to add that my teammates had 1,000 times more confidence in me than I did. Everything they said was positive and supportive and trying to build me up. I was just too much in my head to listen to what they were saying. Note: This event was one where each person needed to complete their portion before they could move on, tagging out was not an option. When it was my turn, it was all on me, if I failed I was stuck there until the end of the event.

I barely remember walking to our lane. But I remember Greg and Adam basically telling me to shut up and do it, (They said it much nicer, but that’s what I heard). In the 10 second countdown, I was holding back tears if ever a black hole would appear the next 5 seconds would have been nice. Jen did awesome as did Adam. I was up, do or die, time to get it done, OMG…they only used 3 minutes out of 12…..this had the potential to be the longest 9 minutes of my life.

I jumped and grabbed the rope (didn’t fall right back off, so I counted that as victory #1), after three pulls I knew I was going to make it up, the doubt went away. After getting down, I had to push aside the desire to take a victory lap but instead decided to chalk up. As I bent to get chalk, I realized my entire body was shaking, not sure if it was fatigue or relief but it shocked me, again something I had never experienced. Repeat the process three more times. I did it; I made it to the top 4 times. A quick hug with the judge and it was time for the 12 deadlifts I had not been prepared for.

As I ran back to my team I could feel the huge smile on my face; I was so happy. The entire Crusher crew was cheering. But the best part, I wasn’t met with high-fives from Adam and Jen (Greg was taking his 60 seconds to do his portion)…..I was met with hugs!!! Such an awesome feeling to know they were celebrating my success. There is a pretty good chance that they were even more excited than I was. They had the confidence in me and knew I could do it. They watched me overcome the doubt and do what I needed to do.

After the event, while walking away, Adam looked at me and said, aren’t you glad you committed to this, if you hadn’t you would still be back at the box saying you can’t do legless rope climbs. So true, so very true.

A few things I was reminded of this weekend.

· It’s okay to be afraid….but don’t let it stop you.

· Continue to put yourself in the uncomfortable and unknown, you will get stronger.

· Nobody is judging you; they are pushing you to be your best self.

· Have fun!

· Nobody cares about your failures.

· Everybody has their “legless rope climbs” that “thing” they don’t think they can do. When you commit and work, it will come, and you can smile, cry and celebrate….and you won’t be alone when you do.